Johnny Depp is to play the controversial author Hunter S Thompson in new film.

"Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S Thompson" looks at a man whose creativity sprang from his perpetual state of imbalance.

Director Alex Gibney described Hunter S Thompson saying: "We knew about the wild and crazy guy, but we had forgotten what a great writer he was."

Depp, who played Thompson in the 1998 film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" became Thompson's friend, and provides narration from his works.

Gibney said they have a psychic bond between them and that he wanted nobody else to play the part.

Hunter Thompson was a brilliant writer but also famously self-destructive; he ended his life, a never-ending orgy of booze and drugs, when he shot himself in 2005 at age 67.

But his death was an event that the Kentucky gentleman had planned meticulously, complete with a memorial ceremony in which his ashes were blasted into the night sky from a 15-storey tower.

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